Daril's First Bitter

All-Grain Batch #1 (Beer #13)

This is our first attempt at an all-grain beer.  We had intended to make an Extra Special Bitter (ESB), but the finished product better fits the description of an "Ordinary Bitter" in   the AHA Style Guidelines:

English-Style Ordinary Bitter

Ordinary bitter is gold to copper colored with medium bitterness, light to medium body, and low to medium residual malt sweetness. Hop flavor and aroma character may be evident at the brewers discretion. Mild carbonation traditionally characterize draft-cask versions, but in bottled versions, a slight increase in carbon dioxide content is acceptable. Fruity-ester character and very low diacetyl (butterscotch) character are acceptable in aroma and flavor, but should be minimized in this form of bitter. Chill haze is allowable at cold temperatures.

Original Gravity (°Plato)	Final Gravity (°Plato)	% Alc./Wt. (Alc./V.)	IBUs	SRM (EBC)
1.033-38 (8.2-9.5)	1.006-12 (2-3)	2.4-3.0 (3.1-3.8)	20-35	8-12 (16-24)

 

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We proceeded on the assumption of making an ESB, as follows:

Extra Special Bitter (ESB)

O.G. = 1.050 F.G. = 1.008 - 1.012

All-Grain Recipe for a 10-11 gallon batch - from Keith Klemp

English-Style (Extra Special) Strong Bitter

Extra special bitter possesses medium to strong hop qualities in aroma, flavor, and bitterness. The residual malt sweetness of this richly flavored, full-bodied bitter is more pronounced than in other bitters. It is gold to copper colored with medium bitterness. Mild carbonation traditionally characterize draft-cask versions, but in bottled versions, a slight increase in carbon dioxide content is acceptable. Fruity-ester character and very low diacetyl (butterscotch) character are acceptable in aroma and flavor. Chill haze is allowable at cold temperatures.

Original Gravity (°Plato)	Final Gravity (°Plato)	% Alc./Wt. (Alc./V.)	IBUs	SRM (EBC)
1.046-60 (11.5-15.0)	1.010-16 (3-4)	3.8-4.6 (4.8-5.9)	30-55	12-14 (24-28)

 

Recipe (10-11 gallons)

• 20# Breiss Pale Ale Malt (Could use Marris Otter if desired.)
• 2# 20L Caramel Malt (Could use 20-40 L Hugh Baird, if desired darker.)
• 3 oz. (EKG) East Kent Goldings (30 IBU / 5.0 AA) @ 60 min.
• 1 oz. (EKG) East Kent Goldings (5 IBU / 5.0 AA) @ 30 min.
• 1 tsp. Gypsum @ dough-in
• ¼ tsp Gypsum @ start of boil
• 1 tsp. Irish Moss @ 20 min.
• 1275 Thames Valley Yeast (Could use Wyeast ESB Yeast)

Coarse grind - Single step infusion mash at about 150 - 152 F.

Ferment @ 65 - 70 F.

Mash ratio water/grain: 1 lb. grain / 1.33 qt. water = ~3 lb. grain per gallon

Therefore - for this recipe, use: 22/3 = 7.33 gallons water to start the mash.

 

Pre-Check

Got enough propane?

Decant some water?

Plenty of sanitizer?

Kettles assembled, water-tight & clean?

 

Prepare Yeast Starter

Boil about ½ lb. Munton & Fison Extra Light DME in ~1.55 L. (.45 gal.) water.

Pitch 1 foil pack of 1275 Thames Valley yeast at room temperature

(Note: "smack" the package on Thursday lunchtime. Pitch at ~9:00 p.m. on Friday)

Mash Procedure

Crush the grains (coarse grind).

Add 1 tsp. Gypsum to ~7.33 gallons cold water in the mash kettle and heat it to 170 F. Turn the burner off. As a backup, you might want to heat another ~5 gallons on the kitchen stove.

Dough-in the crushed grain to the water. Stir to an even temperature (which should settle back to ~150 - 154 F.) and fully mix the mash. DON’T get above 160 F.

Mash for 1 hour. Check occasionally and add heat in short bursts if needed to maintain the a 150 - 152 F. mash temperature.

While mashing, heat ~9 gallons of water to 170 F. for sparging. In general though, one would sparge with no more water than was used in mixing the mash. Otherwise, the mash becomes too thin, possibly resulting in higher pH which causes "grainy" astringency.

When the mash is done (at 60 minutes), open the drain on the mash tun (kettle) and drain about ½ gallon into a pot/pitcher. Add this back into the top of the grain bed. Repeat this until the runnings are clear of husks & hazy stuff. The flow rate should be fairly slow - about 1 qt. every 2 minutes. You need to set the grain bed.

Begin sparging (rinsing). Run the flow directly into the brew kettle at a rate somewhat slower than during recirculation. This must be done slowly so as not to compact the grain bed which is now acting as a filter. The flow rate may be increased somewhat as needed. The recirculation/runoff/sparge process should take about 1 ½ to 2 hours. Collect about 11 gallons of wort in the brew kettle, and perhaps another gallon or so on the side to add to the boiling wort later if needed. Take hydrometer readings during collection. Stop sparging when you’ve hit your target gravity. In this recipe, it would be 1.050.

When done, throw a way the spent grains and continue the procedure as with an extract brew - boil, add hops, cool, pitch, & ferment.

 

Boil Wort & Add Scheduled Ingredients

Thoroughly dissolve any other necessary ingredients in the wort. For this recipe, they include:

¼ teaspoon gypsum

Turn up the heat; and bring it to a rolling boil for a total of 75 minutes. "Hot break" should occur within the first 15 minutes. Allow this to happen. Then allow it to settle back down.

Re-hydrate 1 teaspoon of Irish Moss in water.

At 60 minutes to end of boil (just after "hot break"), in a hop bag - add 3 oz. East Kent Goldings (5.0% AAU) hop pellets.

At 50 minutes or so - take a hydrometer reading of a wort sample

At 30 minutes to EOB, add 1 oz. East Kent Goldings (5.0% AAU) hop pellets in a bag.

At 20 minutes - take another hydrometer reading; then add the Irish Moss.

At 15 minutes - clean, then immerse the wort chiller in the boiling wort to sanitize.

 

Chill the Wort

Turn off the heat; connect the immersion chiller hoses; and start chilling the wort. Target is 72 F.

 

Siphon/Drain Wort to Fermenting Bucket(s)

After having thoroughly sanitized a fermenting bucket, lid, & airlock in bleach - move the cooled wort from brew kettle to fermenter.

 

Pitch the Yeast & Start Fermentation

Upon reaching the target temperature range (72 F.), pitch the yeast starter/slurry. Let it start fermenting at about that temperature for a few days.

After 2 or 3 days, move the fermenting bucket to a cooler place, trying to stabilize in the range of 60 to 72 F.

 

Rack to Secondary & Dry Hop (not done with this recipe)

After 4 to 5 days (when "krausen"/blow-off is done, add 1 oz. Cascade (5.5% AAU) hop pellets into a clean, sanitized 5 gallon carboy.

Rack the beer from the fermenting bucket into the carboy, on top of the hop pellets.

 

Complete Fermentation & Keg It!

When done (at about 2 weeks), rack from carboy to keg.

 

BREW NOTES

Brew Date: Sunday, 1/18/98

The yeast starter in the ½ gallon jug worked beautifully. Plenty of yeast ready to pitch on Sunday evening.

Used the new Corona grain mill for the first time. Had a little trouble trying to fine-tune the plate adjustment to get the crush just right. Even so, I thought that it might have been too coarse a milling – still lots of seemingly whole grains. I was trying to crush rather than pulverize the grains. I wanted to make sure that there would be reasonably good-sized, though broken husks to ensure a good grain bed. I thought that too flour-like a crush would clog the home-made "Easy-Masher"-type gizmo I made for the mash tun.

Brought about 10 gallons of water up to about 180 F. for sparge water. I wanted to put this in the big Coleman cooler to use for sparging after the mash. I knew that the sparge water needed to be about 165 - 170 F, so I thought 180 F. would be enough to allow for a bit of temperature drop over about 1.5 hour’s time. I found later that I could have gone to about 190 - 200 F. It’s easier to cool off the sparge water with cold water, rather than heat up more water to bring it up to a higher temperature. I added 1 tsp. of gypsum to the 10 gallons to adjust the pH.

Brought ~7.33 gallons of water (with 1 tsp. gypsum) up to strike temperature of 170 F. Turned the burner off and doughed-in the 22 lb. of previously crushed grain with the water. After stirring thoroughly, the overall temperature settled at about 154 F. - right on target. Set the timer for 1 hour. Wrapped a big old quilted moving blanket around the mash kettle as an insulator. Seemed to work pretty well. Stirred the mash a few times during the hour to maintain an even temperature. I thought that the mash might be a little thin - too much water for grain. Turns out that I was right. I used the formula of ~3 lb. grain/ 1 gallon water, which meant 7.33 gallons water for 22 lb. grain. This came stright from Dave Miller’s "Homebrewing Guide" book. Keith Klemp suggested that is should be more like 1 lb. grain/ 1 qt. water - meaning 22/4 = 5.2 gallons of mash water. I’ll try that next time. It’s easier to add more water than to take some out.

Mashed out at 168 F. by heating the kettle and stirring the mash. Let it sit for about 10 minutes, then started sparging. The sparge started to run really clear, very quickly. However, this was probably due to the very coarse grind of the grain. Had it been more flour-like, it might not have cleared so quickly, but I probably would have gotten better extraction. At the end of the sparge, I got an total gravity reading of 1.040 - shy of the target 1.052 for an ESB. This falls more in the category of a "Special Bitter" rather than an Extra Special Bitter - but that’s OK. Color is very light - golden - also OK. Keith’s recipe was based on my using Maris Otter base malt. Instead, I used Breiss 2-row pale American malt. He told me that Briess needs a protein rest phase in order to work properly. This means that I should have doughed-in at 125 F. and sat there for 20 minutes; then brought it up to 152 -154 F. for 1 hour. With Maris Otter, it would have been a one-step mash. This also obviously affected the extraction rate. Otherwise, the new gizmo I made seemed to work fine for mashing in a kettle.

Boiled for about 1 ½ hours. Deviated on the hop schedule. Did 3 oz. @60; and 1 oz. @ 20. Chilled down to 75F. in about 20 minutes or so. Pitched the yeast at 6:30 p.m. Sunday and placed both buckets in the back of the master bedroom closet (outside walls) which maintains a fairly constant 65 F. temperature - great for fermenting.

Racked from the primary fermenters to 5-gallon glass carboys on 1/27/98.  Left them in the cool garage to settle out.

 

Keg Date: Saturday, 1/31/98

Kegged a full 5 gallons - intended for consumption at a wedding reception on 3/28/98.  Force-carbonated it, and left it sitting in a cool corner of the garage.  Primed the 2nd 5-gallons with 3/4 cup corn sugar.  Bottled half the batch (24 bottles), and kegged the remainder.   Force-carbonated the 2nd keg and stuck it in the fridge.

Sunday, 2/1/98

Couldn't resist having a taste from the keg in the fridge - barely 24 hours after force-carbonating.  Even this "young", it tastes pretty damned good!  Must resist ... resistance is futile ... shared some a bit later with Daril-Bob.  He concurred that it tastes damned good.

Sunday, 2/8/98

Had company this weekend and brewed again today (details on another page).  Drank lots more of this stuff.  Mmmmm...   This'll never make it to maturity.  Thank goodness there's another keg (NOT to be touched 'til 3/28/98!) and a full case of bottles.

Wednesday, 2/11/98

Brought a 2 liter sample to the TRUB Meeting.  Got lots of good comments.  Very encouraging.  Starting to think that I should enter this in the next local competition - just for the helluvit.

Thursday, 2/12/98

Heard the "mournful sound" of the keg running dry!  WON'T touch the other keg until 3/28/98 ... Must resist .... and we do.  We've still got one case bottled!  Just need to save some to enter in a competition or two.  The "Shamrock Open" is scheduled for 3/18/98.   Must register before 3/11/98.

Saturday, 3/18/98

I'll be damned ... this beer took a 2nd place (Red) ribbon at the Shamrock Open!

Post Mortem - What to do differently.  What did we learn?

(Must have done something right ... ribbon winner. - Beginner's Luck)

Grinding the grain:   Don't be as timid.  Give the grain a finer crush - better extraction.   The pseudo-"Easy Masher" gizmo works just fine.  Don't pulverize the grain, but do grind it a bit finer. 

Mash Ration Water/Grain:

Mash ratio water/grain: 1 lb. grain / 1.33 qt. water = ~3 lb. grain per gallon. Therefore - for this recipe, use: 22/3 = 7.33 gallons water to start the mash. This is TOO MUCH.  The mash was a bit thin.  Instead, use 1lb. grain / 1 qt. water.

Mash Schedule:

Include a "protein rest" phase at 122 F. 

 

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Daril-Bill - (darilbrothers@yahoo.com)